Football is still several months away. However, if we close our eyes and breathe deep, we can almost trick our brains into thinking we’re back sitting inside the stadium. The band sets the soundtrack, school colors drench the landscape as far as the eye can see, and the waft of something amazing on a grill outside the stadium satiates our olfactory desires.
Every stadium in the nation thinks they do football the way it’s meant to be enjoyed. There are some fine traditions in college football, but topping the SEC can be tough.
Here are a few reasons why the SEC is tops on game day.
ATTENDANCE
No one quite fills a stadium like the SEC. Sure, the Big Ten has the three biggest stadiums in the nation (Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State), but the conference falls short when we take a step back and look at total attendance. If every SEC team filled their stadium on a Saturday, we’d see 1,127,658 total fans. The Big Ten, which also has 14 teams, would witness 1,008,900 fans pass through its turnstiles. This is if every team had a home game against a non-conference foe, of course. The ACC also has 14 teams, but their stadiums can “only” hold a combined 825,175 people. In case you were wondering, the Pac-12’s total seats are 744,688, compared to the Big 12’s 620,014 capacity.
The SEC owns half of the top 10 stadiums in terms of capacity, and eight of the top 20. The Big Ten, by comparison, has five in the top 20 with the addition of Nebraska and Wisconsin to the homes of the Buckeyes, Nittany Lions and Wolverines.
The conclusion is quite simple: more fans equals more noise. Which leads us to …
NOISE!
The valley shook for a reason, folks. LSU stunned No. 4 Auburn in 1988, and the earth hasn’t quite stopped quaking since. Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge is consistently, and arguably, the loudest college football stadium in the nation.
Washington’s Husky Stadium and Clemson’s Memorial Stadium have hit higher decibels than the 130 that has been registered in Death Valley, but how often does UW get its fans that fired up? After all, Washington possesses about a .530 winning percentage since hitting 133 on the decibel meter against Nebraska in 1992. But we’re not here to bag on Chris Pedersen’s program. We’ll leave that to Saturday Out West.
Texas A&M also routinely challenges just about every school in the nation when it comes to making opponents wish they had ear plugs. The prowess of Aggies fans being loud, creative and down-right hilarious goes beyond football (see below).
Same goes for Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium as well as Neyland Stadium, home of Tennessee. The result is about four or five SEC homes that leave you with a migraine after 60 minutes of football.
If you are a visiting pitcher in Blue Bell Park, you do not want to issue a Texas A&M hitter a 4-pitch walk… https://t.co/DGFbUeY8Ms
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 12, 2016
LIVE MASCOTS
Not to sound like LSU homers, but having a live tiger sit outside an opposing team’s entrance is about as intimidating as you can get, apart from actually releasing the ferocious animal into the locker room. Live animal mascots are among college football’s best quirky traditions and an affront to PETA members everywhere.
Very few teams have the uniqueness of the SEC. Sure the conference is loaded with Tigers and Bulldogs, but the SEC also comes replete with mascots you won’t find elsewhere. Anyone else have a live boar (Tusk, Arkansas) or a rooster (Sir Big Spur, South Carolina)?
Colorado’s Ralphie (actually a girl), Texas’ Bevo and Baylor’s Judge all deserve their respective props for being one of a kind. But the majority of live mascots are dogs and horses. Boring. If we want to go that route, then Georgia has the most iconic canine mascot in all of North America. Texas A&M’s Reveille also stands on all four legs among the best.
If the SEC, namely Alabama, wanted to step up their live mascot game, perhaps it’s time to trot out a juvenile elephant to midfield before the kickoff to Crimson Tide games. If Colorado can handle a 1,500-pound bison, why can’t Alabama have a live elephant about the same weight (cruelty aside)?
Lest we forget about Auburn’s War Eagle. How many football games throughout the country begin like this? P.S. to those sitting below Nova as he circles the Jordan-Hare Stadium. Heads up.
EATS
Perhaps the “A” in Chick-fil-A stands for “Alabama.” The Tide do have several of the fast food chains in Bryant-Denny Stadium. But the SEC goes far beyond mass-produced fried chicken when it comes to stuffing the maws of their fans. Not many people do food better than they do in the South. And football games are no exception. On any given Saturday in the SEC, you can gorge on jambalaya at LSU, a Smokey Dog in Tennessee or even Thai food in South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium — then wash it all down with a lemonade at Georgia’s Sanford Stadium.
Let Stanford have its sushi. BYU fans can choke down all the veggie rice bowls they can handle before it starts expanding in their guts. And don’t even get us started on Michigan’s antipasto platter. Instead, give us a smokey brisket from Missouri, or at least let us walk around the parking lot of Bryant-Denny where the real fried chicken, and so much more, can be consumed.
WINS
The four aforementioned reasons all add up to one thing: wins.
We’re all familiar with the SEC’s recent spate of success when it comes to winning national championships, given that the College Football Playoff trophy and/or the BCS’ crystal football has left the confines of the Yellowhammer State just twice in the last seven years. But the conference’s prosperity isn’t relegated to just Alabama and Auburn. When you visit the SEC, chances are, you’re going home with a loss.
The conference finished the 2015 season with a 43-11 against its out-of-conference opponents. No conference was able to tally a winning record against the SEC in 2015.
Chris Wuensch is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers South Carolina and Tennessee.
